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New plan to lower rents in the Denver metro area

Cranes on every corner and apartments popping up is a sight that's becoming more the norm around Denver.

President of Denver-based Zeppelin Development, Kyle zeppelin, said the demand to keep on building isn't going away any time soon.

“We have more demands to do things, then there is hours in the day or dollars to do them,” said Zeppelin.

The recent census shows Denver is up two spots from last year, making it the 19th most populous city in America, bringing the population to just little over 682,000.

Just in downtown Denver, the number of residential units according to the Downtown Denver partnership has tripled since 2000.

“People want to live and work more urban and have things be more bikeable and walkable,” said Zeppelin.

But making things more bikeable and walkable means getting rid of cars -- especially in downtown Denver. Statistics show 21 percent of those that live in downtown don't own a car, making urban planners reshape how people get around in areas such as the RiNo District.

More and more apartments are actually thinking of doing away with parking or making limited parking the norm. Zeppelin said they're replacing parking spaces with more units to bring the average rent of $1,317 a month down.

“What people are looking at is not a cost per square foot but the total cost per month. We are doing more workforce housing and trying to keep the cost down with smaller units and cutting out some of extraneous features,” said Zeppelin.